Today on the Day of the Dead, I thought I might share a poem and a story I wrote over 15 years ago after a unique dance experience in nature.

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Bone dance crazy.“Oh it’s much better to die before you die, it makes living much more fun.”What is a bone dance?“You should do a bone dance.”The bones of the earth.“The skeleton woman, the stars and the Earth are the true owners of our souls.”Dancing between the worlds.And the joke is on us.We see how living people wiggle aroundThinking what they do matters so much:Working, planning, struggling-It is fun when they are singing, when they are drunk,When they‘re in love.It’s all funny.We see their bones, like watching someone who doesn’t knowThey are naked,Or that they are wearing a Big Bird outfit.Like someone who doesn’t knowThey are going to die-Who doesn’t knowThey are already dead!

There is magic in the world-See how the light moves.The stars hold down the mystery.There is a binding force keeping the atom together.Love’s contractionKeeping our hearts tied up with Everything.

And then there is the sacred entropy.Watch it all disappear!Bye!Make love with your death!It is the dancing ground of happy bones.Mutilation, strangulation, and grey flesh-A distant memory.That heart attack day.The crushed skull in the car accident.Whoops!The bones remember the time we broke throughTo the other side.The jaws of the mystery are opening and closingWith laughter.Love lives side by side with what slips away.They walk into the sunset arms around each others shouldersLike childhood friends.

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My Bone Dance Story

This is the story of how I discovered the Bone Dance ceremony while hiking in the Sierra Nevadas in the summer of 2001. I believe it was practiced long ago by people of that region, but still holds powerful medicine for today. I hope it will find a place in your heart.

My journey began from a peak in the White Mountains, a few hours east of Yosemite National Park, in a group of about ten other adventurers in a workshop hosted by the Animas Valley Institute. We descended into a lush alpine meadow at 10,000 feet where we stayed with minimal provisions for five days. During the course of the trek, we practiced different exercises to study the dynamics of soul encounter.

During one such exercise, while I had been examining my fears about loved ones dying, I found myself in an internal dialogue with my spiritual mentor, Frank Natale. He told me how, in his life, he had learned that the true owners of our souls are the Skeleton Woman, the stars, and the Mother Earth. He put his hand on my back and when I felt the universe’s dismantling dance, I argued senselessly, “Why should I let go? I’m not dead yet!” He answered, “Oh it’s much better to die before you die, it makes living much more fun.” I asked, “How?“ and he said “You’d have the f***ing balls to express your soul gifts with much less hesitation.”

At the end of this long and emotional night, I had a vision of my skeleton walking away from me through the sage and Indian paintbrush flowers which glowed in iridescent purples and reds. The image left a vivid imprint in my memory.

Later in the week, we were told we had the option to create a final ritual. We were given suggestions about ways to use symbolic language to communicate with our souls. I was sitting in the circle, listening to the ideas, when I turned casually to the sage bush next to me, and asked silently, “So what should my final ritual be?” The bush answered, “You should do a bone dance.”

Mind you, I had been immersed in an isolated wilderness miles from civilization for several days by that point, engaging in ritual, trance, and ceremony. It felt completely normal for a bush to talk to me. It was only that particular answer that I found surprising. I immediately remembered the image of the skeleton and wondered, “What’s a bone dance?”

The next day took an interesting turn- one of the group members was having an allergic reaction, so we all needed to head back to the city and Western medicine one day earlier than we planned. I panicked. I felt I was blossoming in that environment and I had already been anxious about leaving. Having one less day was such a shock and disappointment, I tearfully and desperately suggested alternatives to the group, but I finally had to accept their decision. I quickly ran to complete my final ritual in the few hours I had left. It probably worked out better that way, not having the time to plan anything or figure it out beforehand. I had to do it on the fly. There was simply no time.

I hiked to a large field of sage brush with a backpack of basic necessities. I called the four directions with some impromptu love poetry to each one, opening myself to the experience. I invited my spirit guides including Frank Natale and others I had met earlier on the trek. First things first: I knew I needed to die before I could do a bone dance.

In a nearby creek I had noticed some insects shaped like clumps of pine needles living on the rocks in the water. I imagined/ felt they were nibbling my skin, tons of them, eating away at my flesh, little by little. I anticipated the throes of excruciating agony, until I realized that it didn’t have to be so fearsome or dramatic. It was simply happening. My flesh was rapidly disappearing.

Soon I could feel my bare bones left. I made little movements to see how different I looked with just my bones moving. I played my shaker. Loudly. I started to dance. I found a groove, swung my arms, shook my hips, and stomped with my usual impressiveness. The eyes of the sage were on me, waiting for the dance to happen. I kept trying, but I could see through their eyes I was not getting anywhere. I was taking myself too seriously!

With their roots deep in the earth, geared up for a show, the sage bushes wanted entertainment. They wanted dance that was a cosmic stand-up comedy, telling the joke of existence again and again. The joke of all human action. The joke of reality. I wasn’t sure I knew the joke, but I wanted to move past my limitations. I didn’t want to go on without knowing the joke. So I worked harder.

I heard a chuckle or two. I was beginning to move really silly now, like a vaudeville act. Raunchy stuff, over-the-top, tongue-in-cheek movements. I heard the laughing get louder. They really wanted to laugh, so I just had to find the right button and keep pushing it. Flailing, thrusting, wiggling, bopping around, the goofier the better. Scratching, pecking, wagging my jaw. Soon they were all rolling on the ground- Frank joining the sage bushes- falling on top of each other with uncontrollable laughter.

It was challenging to sustain the energetic output and mental focus required for a successful bone dance. I had a few more waves of steady laughter, and soon I was ready to return to the world of the living. I wished I had been able to go on much longer, but I knew that my first try did not need to be perfect. My flesh and skin reappeared spontaneously.

The sage bushes were very sweet to me afterwards. They said they hadn’t seen a real bone dance in so long that they were sincerely grateful to have even my little attempts. It was the clearest affirmation I’d ever received that nature, the spirits in nature, and the Earth, all long to reconnect with humans and re-establish our loving and harmonious balance. They relish in our age-old relationship, based in music, dance, and ceremony, and they are also lonely and saddened by our growing estrangement.

They indicated that sometime in the past, ceremonial bone dances were actually performed by the native people of that region. It was a way for us to temporarily borrow the detached, pain-free perspective of the dead so we could look at life and laugh about it, and also so we could walk freely in the spirit world. The rituals around the Day of the Dead in Mexico bear a strong resemblance, as do the traditional skeleton dances of Tibet which share the objective of finding humor in the cycle of life and death.

The Legacy of the Dance

My experience clarified for me the relative insignificance of my life, giving me the courage to act without second guessing everything or being overly cautious. It dismantles pride, ownership, and the fear of death which equates with the fear of life. With renewed energy, I can ultimately experience more love and have a more positive effect in the world. Dying before you die does indeed make living more fun.

As someone who has been exploring the overlap of spirituality and movement for many years, I feel this ceremony to be uniquely beautiful and beneficial. It needs to be brought back to life. The earth needs it, and we need it. We need it to have a sense of humor about ourselves. We need it to have the courage to embrace our soul gifts by facing death, our great teacher. And most of all, we need it to redeem ourselves and renew our connection with our friends in the natural world.

Bone Dance Fundamentals

The bone dance can be practiced as a solo ritual among nature spirits, as I did, but I believe it was meant to be practiced in a group, as a celebration within a spiritual community or family. It can stand on its own as a single ceremony, or it can be incorporated into other ceremonies. It is not limited to any particular religious tradition, and can supplement any form of spiritual practice.

A bone dance consists of the following elements. There must be a demarcation of sacred space to which ancestor and nature spirits are invited. The selected dancer(s) must undergo a simulation of death, a symbolic act or visualization for the dancer to let go of all attachment to the material world. The dancer must become his or her bones, either symbolically or with costuming.

Then the bones must dance to evoke laughter in all who are present, and give one hundred percent of his or her energy to the hilarity of the movements. Going beyond shame or ambition, he or she must enact the cartoon of life, reminding us of the ridiculousness of all existence. When the dancer’s flesh reappears, the ceremony concludes as the witnesses express their gratitude for the dancer’s offering.

I encourage you to take the bone dance ceremony into your spiritual groups, your drum circles, or your personal practice. It is an excellent way to strengthen our community bonds, commune with the spirit world, and renew a commitment to being present in each moment. I look forward to sharing a bone dance with you!